


Recipe for Love

by detailsofyourincompetence



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, based on the movie No Reservations (2007)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detailsofyourincompetence/pseuds/detailsofyourincompetence
Summary: Regina Mills is a perfectionist chef and single mother to her ten-year-old son Henry. After recently finding out that he was adopted, Henry has been withdrawn and silently sulking. Only Emma Swan, new sous-chef in the restaurant, is able to connect with him, and Regina slowly learns that she has to soften her strong hold both on her son as well as her kitchen in order to keep both in her life. Loosely based on the movie No Reservations. (Also, the title is borrowed from the German original version, Rezept zum Verlieben.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, it's been such a crazy ride and also a pleasure to write this. This story has been at the back of my mind for months now, and at the front of it for many weeks as well, and I do hope I've done it justice.
> 
> A huge thank you goes to my amazing cheerleader [ilovelucyred62](http://ilovelucyred62.tumblr.com). Without her help and support, I would have given up on ever finishing this story, seriously. Also, many thanks to [curiouslycurious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslycurious) for creating [such beautiful coverart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8803918) to go with this story. I feel so honored! And, again, a huge shout out to L., my last-minute-and-patient-and-helpful beta. All remaining mistakes are my own (and, let's just pretend, intentional).
> 
> And, last not least, thanks, thanks, thanks a lot to the wonderful and friendly mods of SQ Supernova. It's been a pleasure to participate.

Regina Mills might have a lot of rules, but the most important one is: Never talk to a stranger about your feelings.

 

(She simply _doesn’t_ talk about her feelings, as a general rule. She will make an exception for her best friend, Marian, maybe on Friday nights, when she is exhausted after working the evening shift for four weeks in a row, and maybe when she has had a glass of wine too much. And maybe, if she is desperate, and lonely, and desperately in need of _family_ , she will call her sister Zelena, who will listen to her constant worrying, and, rarely, to her complaining about being a single mother, in New York, with a full time job, and no supportive family nearby. “Oh, honestly, darling,” Zelena will say, voice so close that Regina could almost forget Zelena had moved to San Francisco right after finishing high school. “Do you really want mother living nearby, judging every single one of your ‘poor life choices, and when do you plan to start dating again, Regina? Your boy needs a father figure, Regina. Do you really need to visit those awful peculiar friends of yours, Regina?’”, mimicking her mother’s voice so well that Regina is suddenly glad that her mother is not nearby, that Cora is at a safe distance, ruling with an iron fist over her little kingdom of hotel chains in Florida.)

 

Anyway, Regina doesn’t discuss her feelings with strangers.

 

This is why, for the third time in a row, she spends the time at her therapist‘s office not lying on a couch, eyes closed, but standing in front of a large window looking out over Central Park. Dr. Hopper sits at his desk, hands folded in front of him, and she can feel his calm and patient eyes boring into her back. She talks, mostly, about her newest culinary invention and avoids the complicated relationship with her mother or the dream that has been haunting her for the last three weeks. (Three weeks ago, she had woken up gasping, drenched in cold sweat, and had to bite her tongue to keep her screams inside while the dream image of her father drowning in black water had slowly faded from her mind. She is not going to talk about the meaning behind that image.)

 

This time though, Dr. Hopper interrupts her just when she is about to launch into a lengthy explanation on her favorite way to serve quails (roasted, with a side of truffle ravioli and wild mushrooms). “I hope you don‘t mind if I stop you here, Regina.”

She pauses, somewhat taken aback at his intervening, and turns her back on the window. Eyes hardening, she glares at him, because _how dare he?_ , but before she can say anything, Dr. Hopper nods to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Why don’t you sit down for a moment?”

 

Almost on autopilot, Regina slowly steps around the desk and stiffly sits down. She forces herself to not relax too much, because despite the straight back and unpadded arms, the chair is deceptively comfortable.

 

Dr. Hopper tilts his head, his small eyes blinking rapidly, as he gives a satisfied nod. “Why don’t we talk about why you are here?”

 

She tilts her head and thinks for a moment. They both know exactly why she has been coming to his office instead of doing what she does best. “I am here because my employer is under the impression that I need to talk to a professional about what happened and she won’t let me come back to work until I do,” she had said during their first meeting. She had still believed then that these sessions would be over in no time. While her assumption on that had been proven wrong, her opinion on these sessions hadn’t changed, and she is about to repeat the exact words at him.

 

Patiently, Dr. Hopper keeps looking at her over the rim of his glasses, and just as patiently, he asks her again, “Why are you really here, Regina?”

 

And it is the third time in as many weeks that Regina is sitting in this excruciatingly cozy office, trying not to bare too much of her soul and offering food instead of insight to her emotions. And maybe her resolve is wearing thin, and maybe it is because her son Henry won’t even talk to her to ask for a dose of painkillers, opting to silently suffer through his pain instead, but somehow Regina lets out a long, painful breath and tightens her grip on the edge of the chair she is sitting on. “I am here because my son found out that he is adopted, and I am terrified of losing him.”

 

 

*

 

 

It is just after 4.30 on a Tuesday when Regina leaves Dr. Hopper’s office, and she has to pick up Henry after his Spanish class in twenty minutes. Usually, she would take the C train to 23rd street, but with Henry still dependent on crutches she doesn’t want to burden him with public transport. Instead, she takes her old Mercedes and waits for Henry next to the gates of his school. The radio reception has been poor ever since her antenna broke off during the hailstorm last Friday, leaving her sitting in a mix of music from the eighties and radio static. Regina considers getting out of the car for the rest of the time, but the front windshield is already fogging up with her breath, and the residual heat from the Mercedes’ engine is the only thing protecting her from the November cold. She doesn’t feel like facing the parents of her son’s schoolmates anyway, so she stays in the driver’s seat and pulls her scarf from the back seat to wrap it around her neck.

 

She is five minutes early, and it takes another ten after the official end of his class until Henry appears on the sidewalk. His reluctance to get in the car is visible in the way he hunches his shoulders and keeps his back turned to her as he waves goodbye to Ava and Nick Zimmer. Impatiently, Regina drums her fingers against the steering wheel, forcing out a long breath right before Henry opens the backseat door. He pushes his crutches into the car first, and Regina can see him wince when he shifts more of his weight onto his injured leg.

 

“Henry, dear, maybe if you try sitting down first, it might take the strain off of your leg.”

 

He scowls at her and slams the door shut with a little more force than necessary, effectively ending her reprimand, and again, Regina is left wondering when exactly her smart little boy started to become this moody withdrawn pre-teenager. During the last weeks he has been distant and withdrawn, barely saying a single word more than necessary. It’s the stress finally taking its toll on him, Regina tells herself; he has after school classes twice a week, and weekly meetings with Dr. Hopper, and Regina can tell he is not getting as much sleep as he should be.

 

During the drive home (traffic is almost at a standstill during rush hour, and internally, Regina curses both the other drivers and the fact that Henry’s crutches basically force her to take her car instead of the subway like a sane person), Regina tries to break the hostile silence Henry seems to prefer anyhow. He doesn’t want to talk about his sessions with Dr. Hopper, or Spanish, so she changes the subject to draw him out. “Are you ready for math on Friday, or would you like me to help you study after dinner?” He has a test on decimal fractions and she knows for a fact that her son is somewhat afraid of the test; he’s always been more interested in books and stories than abstract numbers, but tonight he shrugs noncommittally and continues to stare sullenly out of the window.

 

It takes her more than fifteen minutes to make the short drive from Henry’s school to the end of 5th avenue, and when she indicates to take a right on Waverly Place, she tries to smile at Henry in the rear view mirror. He meets her eyes briefly but his expression doesn’t change.

 

She sighs, but makes sure her smile never wavers. “So, you have physiotherapy again tomorrow. Are you excited to show Mulan how good you are at taking the stairs on your own now?” She keeps her voice light, despite the lump she feels forming in the back of her throat, making it harder for her to breathe. She indicates a left again and pulls up at the driveway in front of her apartment.

 

Henry grabs his backpack and his crutches, and his angrily muttered “No” is barely discernible over the slamming of the car door.

 

After briefly pressing the heels of her hands against her closed eyes, Regina is behind Henry in a second. She offers to take his backpack – they live on the second floor after all -, but Henry just grabs his crutches tightly, and slowly, wordlessly he makes his way up the stairs.

 

“Henry,” she calls after him, exasperated, and again when he won’t even turn around to look at her. “Henry!”

 

“What?” They have almost made it to the second floor when he finally does turn around, still not meeting her eyes. He is breathing heavily, leaning most of his weight on his crutches, and it almost breaks her heart to see her son like this, but she straightens her shoulders to strengthen her resolve.

 

“You will look at me when I talk to you, and the least you can do is _pretend_ to listen when I want you to be careful with your leg,” Regina starts, steel in her voice. She has been his mother for all his life, and she is not going to let the adoption (her choosing him, her vowing to take care of him and loving him, blood relation or not) get between herself and her son.

 

“Or what?” Henry asks, and she sees so much of herself in him when he closes in on himself, his face void of any emotion aside from his impotent anger. “You’re not my real mom anyway!”

 

He turns around again, leaving her standing in the middle of the stairs, and she can only gape at him while he ascends slowly, steadily, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

 

Thirty painful seconds later she hears the door to their apartment open, and a moment later, thunk shut again, and she doesn’t even think about it before she finds herself standing in front of Marian’s door. She has never been more thankful that her best friend ( _only_ friend, her subconscious mind cruelly whispers at her, but she shuts it out when Marian opens the door) is her next door neighbor.

 

“I need you to take care of Henry for tonight,” she says, and she would be disgusted at how needy she sounds if it weren’t for Marian. _I’m terrified of losing my only son, and I feel like I can’t breathe anymore, and I need to go back to work so I don’t lose both my son and my mind,_ is what she doesn’t say but Marian understands anyway. Regina is grateful when the other woman doesn’t try to hug her, but only nods and sends her on her way with a soft smile.

 

 

*

 

 

Regina Mills expects many things when she comes back to work that night. She expects a well-meant compassionate ‘ _is there anything I can do?’’_ from Mary Margaret, her eyes comically large and oh-so-understanding but intrusive nonetheless, an awkward pat on the shoulder from David, their sommelier, or maybe the offer of hugs or booze from her boss, Kathryn.

 

What she doesn’t expect, is to storm into the restaurant, cutting off Kathryn’s worried ‘ _I thought I told you to stay home for the rest of the month’_ with a wordless wave of her hand, storming past bewildered guests-

 

\- and opening the door in the back of the restaurant to find her kitchen in more chaos than she has ever seen it in. There is obnoxiously loud music playing in the background (never play music in Regina’s kitchen, that is one of her _few_ rules), and in the hustle and bustle of the evening shift she can make out the unfamiliar face of a blonde woman moving her hips to the rhythm of the song (never dance in her kitchen, that rule goes right along with the aforementioned, _of course_ ). Regina abruptly stops in the doorway and stares in horror at what is left of her kitchen.

 

She stares, open-mouthed, at everyone doing their job, except the unfamiliar woman standing in the middle of what used to be _her_ kitchen, slicing carrots into what Regina guesses aren’t even half-acceptably even stripes. Just when the music climaxes, the woman does the unthinkable, steps back from the counter to spread her arms to sing along to this dreadful song, “Car ma vie, car mes joies, aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi,” drawing out the last syllable long after the music has stopped.

 

Regina feels her shoulders stiffen and hears Kathryn enter behind her, keeps staring at the woman who is definitely not chopping carrots now.

 

Mary Margaret is the first to notice her, and she blanches in horror before motioning to someone to turn off the music before the next song can begin. In the silence that follows, Regina feels everyone‘s eyes turn towards her, and finally even the other woman lifts her eyes to Regina, her eyes breaking into a huge but sheepish grin. Regina feels anger flare up hotly inside her chest. “Who are you?“ she almost, but not fully, snarls.

 

The smile does not falter, but the other woman straightens her back and extends her right hand, which Regina does not shake. “Emma Swan. And let me tell you, the world would be a dark and depressing place without your chicken in truffles sauce.”

 

In horror, Regina turns back to Kathryn standing behind her. “Who is that?” she demands.

 

Kathryn keeps her face calm, but Regina can see the threat of panic rising in her eyes. “I tried to tell you. Emma is covering for you.” She points at the busy kitchen, and over her shoulder at the crowded restaurant. “I didn’t have a choice, Regina, I had to find help. I was missing a chef after all.“

 

“Three weeks, Kathryn? It took you three weeks to find a replacement for me? You were the one who told me to take some time off. You practically ordered me to do so, and now I come back to find this… this idiot singing in my kitchen!” Her voice rises with the last of her words, and those of her colleagues who have been working with her for some time now, are smart enough to turn away and pretend not to be listening in, while Emma Swan looks on bemusedly.

 

“Not a replacement, Regina, but I needed help. And that order still stands, by the way,” Kathryn replies, voice even, and this time, there is no sign of insecurity in her eyes. Regina realizes that this time, Kathryn will not back down. Instead of giving a show to the entire staff and guests, Kathryn pulls a slightly resisting Regina into their walk-in-refrigerator. “Emma was sou chef in an Italian restaurant in Boston, and I had to act quick.”

 

This does nothing to calm Regina’s already-hot temper, and somehow, she feels the control over her kitchen already slip away, just like Henry has been moving away from her, and she feels like she is about to lose everything important to her within just a few hours. “Honestly? Now you are joking, right? Because, an Italian restaurant? Are we going to offer spaghetti bolognese now?”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kathryn replies and pulls a bottle of wine from its place in the rack. “The restaurant has two stars, and I had to act quick because the _Pirates’’Tavern_ was offering her a job as their chef.”

 

“Oh good! I feel better now. Why didn’t she take up their offer, then? Aside from the stupid name, obviously,” Regina asks when she follows Kathryn back to the kitchen.

 

“She wanted to work with you.”

 

At that, Regina feels her anger deflate somewhat, her heartbeat slowing down. Regina clenches her hands into tight fists to keep at least some of her resistance at the front of her mind. “Well. Maybe she does have some taste.” She tries not to look too pleased as she is looking at Emma, the other woman unabashedly meeting her eyes over the top of the stove.

 

Until the frying pan Emma Swan is standing in front of, catches fire.

 

No way she will be working with that _idiot_.

 

Kathryn and Regina do make a deal after that: Regina will continue her sessions with Dr. Hopper (“Nothing good will come out of that, Kathryn, but I will humor you,” Regina replies to Kathryn‘s demand) and take whatever time he deems necessary for her and Henry to reconcile. Regina, in turn, asks Kathryn to never consider Emma as her replacement, and Kathryn places a calming hand on her forearm. „”he stays as long as Henry needs you. We’ll see after that.”

 

Regina doesn’t feel calm or relieved, but it is a start at least. She is going to make sure that Emma Swan doesn’t work in her kitchen for longer than absolutely necessary.

 

 

*

 

 

Later that night, when she comes home after convincing Kathryn that, yes, she does feel good enough to come back to work, and telling her that no, she is neither in the mood to talk nor drink, and glaring at Mary Margaret across the kitchen until the very pregnant woman shrinks into herself, later that night Regina comes home to find a bag with a box of what smells suspiciously like her comfort food hanging from her front door. She smiles, exhausted, but again so thankful for Marian living next door. After closing the door behind her, Regina places the bag on the small side table in the hallway. There is still light shining from under Henry’s bedroom door, but when she has slipped off her heels and crossed the hallway in stockinged feet, the light is turned off. Sighing, Regina opens the door anyway. Henry’s small form is barely discernible from her place in the doorway, but Regina can see that he only pretends to be asleep, his breath unnaturally slow and shallow. Fighting her impulse to press a kiss to his forehead and wrap his blanket around him just like she used to before, she closes the door silently.

 

Sitting at the small kitchen table, she finds a hand written note from Marian in the bag. _He’ll come around, querida,_ and Regina promises herself she will not cry herself to sleep that night.

 

She still feels tears on her face until it is past midnight.

 

 

*

 

 

It is already 7.30 when Henry wakes her the next morning. It is 7.30 on a Wednesday morning, and Regina doesn’t have to be at work before 11 am. That leaves her enough time for a shower, she thinks, and closes her eyes again, and even for a cup of strong black coffee, until Henry shakes her shoulder again, hesitantly.

 

“Mom? Mom, wake up. I have to get to school.”

 

That does wake her up.

 

It is 7.30 on a Wednesday, a school day, and Henry has to be at school at 8 am, and this is going to be the first time Henry is late for school.

 

Barely ten minutes later (she skipped the shower, and coffee, but brushed her teeth and hair), Regina slips on her shoes with the left hand and grips the keys with her right one. She is about to open the door when Henry makes a face. “I can’t find my journal.”

 

“That’s okay. We will look for it tonight,” Regina tries.

 

“No! It’s the one Dr. Hopper gave me, and he told me to take it with me. Everywhere!”

 

Regina sighs, and silently counts to ten, but Henry is on the verge of panicking, and she knows better than to try and argue with him when he is this close to crying. Without further contradicting, she slips off her heels again.

 

 

*

 

 

They end up almost an hour late. (Henry’s journal was hidden under his mattress, and Regina has been wondering the whole time if her son is now actively trying to alienate her.) Regina is never late, and this is the first time that the two of them walk through almost eerily quiet hallways. Henry is hobbling next to her, brooding in silence, while Regina carries his backpack. They stop in front of his classroom, Henry slightly out of breath but pretending not to be, while Regina pretends not to notice. Hand on the doorknob, she peers through the small glass window into the classroom. Henry has a double lesson of English, and Ms. French smiles at them from the front of the class, adding a small hand wave.

 

“You should go inside,” Regina says, turning to Henry. “I’ll come pick you up after school.”

 

Henry only huffs noncommittally and without another word, ducks into the class when she tries to hug him briefly. Regina’s face hardens when she vows not to let her hurt show.

 

 

*

 

 

Thankfully, Emma Swan hasn’t succeeded in burning down the kitchen when Regina arrives at work that day.  _Yet_ , Regina thinks, and she throws a dark glare her way for good measure.

 

Much to Regina’s dismay, Emma still has the audacity to smile brightly back at her, and Regina huffs indignantly while taking great care in wrapping her crisp white apron tightly around her hips.

 

When everything is prepared for today’s menu, they still have almost an hour before the lunch rush will start, so Kathryn has the staff sit down at the table in the backroom of the restaurant. Kathryn takes a moment to officially welcome Emma to the staff, explaining Regina’s situation without mentioning Henry and the accident, and Regina watches Mary Margaret move restlessly on her chair, constantly clasping and unclasping her hands. Regina does take some comfort in her obvious discomfort.

 

Mary Margaret only relaxes when Emma starts serving freshly prepared pasta as a sort of welcome lunch (pregnancy makes hungry, Regina assumes, and the only thing actually calming Mary Margaret seems to be the promise of food these days). Regina barely listens in on the hushed conversations going on around the table, opting for looking through menu options she for sure does not have memorized already, until Emma is standing right next to her chair. “I’ll pass,” she says, placing her hand on her plate without looking up from the printouts she is holding.

 

“I don’t think so,” Emma replies, smile firmly in place. Without further ado, she takes hold of Regina’s hand, pulling it to the side, and places a generous amount of pasta on the now free plate.

 

Regina would never admit out loud that it smells delicious, neither would she admit that she can feel her mouth watering, so she crosses her arms dismissively. “I have a rule to not eat during my shift,” she says, still not looking at Emma or the plate in front of her.

 

“That’s a stupid rule,” Emma whispers, only loud enough for her to hear, and at that Regina does look up. “Eat up.”

 

“Or what, Miss Swan? Are you going to tell me a sad story about where you got this recipe and how I should honor you and your sad story by eating this… _food_?”

 

Emma smirks, and Regina absolutely doesn’t find that charming. “I could do that, but I think I should rather tell you that eating is important, and that only a full chef can fully judge food. When you’re hungry, everything tastes great,” Emma adds.

 

“Even something simple as your pasta bolognese?” Regina asks, and shoves a fork full of pasta into her mouth. She would never admit that the pasta indeed does taste _great_ , perfectly al dente and the different spices working well with the ground meat. “Happy?” she asks, still chewing.

 

“Only when you do eat up,” Emma says, still smirking, but she is already moving forward to David, placing pasta on his plate as well.

 

At the other end of the table, Kathryn is watching Regina expectantly. “So, what do you say, Regina?”

 

She swallows, looks from Kathryn to her pasta and back again. “About what?”

 

“Emma’s suggestion.” She points at her already half-finished plate. “I have been thinking about adding something new to the menu. Our young and health obsessed customers might appreciate it.”

 

Regina breathes in, holds the breath and swallows noisily. “We are not some Italian _ristorante_ ,” she retorts, “and I don’t think _health obsessed customers_ would choose processed food like pasta.” She shoves another fork full of pasta in her mouth (no reason to let go perfectly good food to waste, she thinks) and, with a final glare at Emma, stands up.

 

 

*

 

 

Regina has no intention to exchange more words with Emma than absolutely necessary that day, or any after that. She is not going to be ambushed in her own kitchen, and she hasn’t come this far in this male-dominated profession without learning her fair share about creating a hostile workspace.

 

She moves to her office next to the kitchen, sitting on her swivel chair, back straight, and patiently waits for Emma to follow her. Surprising to no one, she only has to wait for a few minutes. Emma almost looks distressed when she enters the small room. Regina is in no mood to hear her explanations or excuses though, so she locates the print-out menu on her table, swiftly cutting it in two. “Apparently, there is only one way for us to work next to each other, Miss Swan,” she explains, handing Emma the noticeably shorter part of the list. “You take care of those dishes, while I take care of these.” She smirks at Emma, her expression more smug than she as ever been this past week, daring Emma to comment on her dishes.

 

Regina’s smirk only deepens, her eyes sparkling dangerously, when the other woman opens her mouth to reply. “You do have some important dishes on your hands. Soups and salads- I am sure you can handle those?” With a wave of her hand she dismisses her, tilting her head in the last moment. “Oh, and Miss Swan? I expect you to not screw those up, if you don’t mind.”

 

Regina is both satisfied and a little disappointed when she does succeed in not talking to the other woman until she has to leave to pick up Henry from school.

 

 

*

 

 

The next week, Regina thinks about calling her mother for help for the tiny fraction of a second.

 

Henry’s school is closed on Tuesday for the rest of the week (a bursting of pipes, followed by a flooding of the first floor, Henry’s principal had explained, offering a halfhearted “I’m sorry about any inconvenience, Ms. Mills.”), and while Marian had offered to take him to physio on Wednesday, that still leaves her without a responsible adult or a babysitter to watch Henry for the rest of the week.

 

“I want to stay home,” Henry insists on Tuesday evening, unenthusiastically picking at his dinner with his fork.

 

“We can talk about that when you are sixteen and not having your broken leg in a cast,” Regina replies and instead sends Kathryn a text, telling her that Henry is going to accompany her to work for the rest of the week. “It will be like old times,” she explains to Henry, “you can sit at my desk, do your homework or read your comics, and I am sure that Ruby will try to bribe you with hot chocolate to wait her tables.”

 

Henry goes to bed early, sulking about not getting his way, but his mood has magically improved when she lets him sleep in on Wednesday morning. He is still silent when they make the way down to the car, but lets her carry his backpack holding his journal and the latest additions to his comic book collection.

 

At the restaurant, he moves wordlessly to her office, nodding only briefly at Kathryn and Ruby. Mary Margaret has the week off, and Regina is thankful for that, because there is no way she would let her close to her son this soon. After depositing his backpack on the chair next to him, Regina pulls her apron from the back of the door. “I’ll ask Ruby to bring you a hot chocolate,” she says, trying not to let her heart overflow with feelings as this moment reminds her so much of the time when things between them were not this complicated.

 

It is 1 pm when Emma enters the kitchen in a rush of cold air, almost twenty minutes late, hair tied up in a messy ponytail and cheeks red from the cold. “I’m sorry, but my bike had a flat, so I had to take the subway, and let me tell you, I had almost forgotten what a chaos that can be,” she lets out in a long stream of words and rushes into Regina’s office to get her half of the menu, almost tripping over Henry. “Uhm… You are not Regina.”

 

Henry turns in his chair to look at the newcomer. “No, I don’t think I am.”

 

From across the kitchen, Regina watches them stare at each other for a moment, until it dawns on Emma. “Uh, you must be Regina’s son. Henry, right?”

 

Henry nods his head yes.

 

“Thought so. Your cast gave you away,” Emma explains before gripping the part of the menu she was looking for before turning to leave the office. “Hey, kid, you should get it signed,” she says, pointing at his left leg.

 

For the rest of the day, Henry keeps the chair close to the doorway, lifting his eyes from his comic book from time to time to look at Emma curiously.

 

The next day he brings his crayons along with his comic, asking everyone to sign his cast.

 

 

*

 

 

“Hey, do your toes itch a lot?” Emma asks on Friday, when she is kneeling on the floor next to Henry, a comic book spread open in front of her while she is drawing what Regina supposes is Wonder Woman on the side of Henry’s cast.

 

Henry nods his head. “You got the color of her tiara wrong,” he says when Emma puts the yellow crayon bag into Henry’s bag.

 

“Not my fault when you don’t have a golden crayon,” she replies, picking up red to color Wonder Woman’s boots. “And your shin, does it itch like hell too?”

 

Henry nods, again, trying to scratch the skin of his left leg inside his cast. “Why do you know that my leg itches?”

 

Emma looks up at him briefly. “I broke my left arm when I was eight,” she explains, “I don’t remember much about that, but I had to wear a cast as well, and I do remember that there was nothing to make the itching stop. I tried to take the cast off by myself, but my doctor got really angry and I swear, he made me wear it for two more weeks just because of that!” She tilts her head to inspect her work. “I think I’m done here.”

 

 

*

 

 

“It wasn’t that bad, coming to work with you,” Henry admits on Sunday evening, when they are leaving the restaurant. “I could stay up late, and thanks to Emma my cast now looks really cool.”

 

On the way to the car they pass Emma who is just getting on her bike, waving at them. “Have fun at school tomorrow, Henry. You really should come back here when you learn more about the blue whale and his 400 pound heart.”

 

Henry smiles at that, and it’s neither forced nor halfhearted, and Regina thinks that the burst piping wasn’t all bad.

 

 

*

 

 

It’s five weeks after the accident, and Regina has somehow accepted the presence of Emma Swan in her kitchen. She isn’t too happy about sharing her space with someone else. Her years in the business have also taught her that there is always a sort of rivalry between chefs, and no matter how often Emma tells her that she isn’t there to steal her job but to work _with_ her, the fear of losing what she loves is always in the back of her mind.

 

Regina still visits Dr. Hopper on Tuesdays, picking up Henry afterward, and Tuesdays are the only day of the week when Regina lets herself actually be thankful for Emma Swan’s presence in her life. Thanks to Emma Swan, Regina can go to work after she has dropped off Henry at school, watching over deliveries and preparing whatever dishes need preparing. She leaves for her therapy sessions after that, always on time, briefly nodding at Emma who has made it a habit to steer clear of her on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and mostly the rest of the week.

 

Tuesdays, Regina thinks, are still the hardest day of the week. Ever since admitting to Dr. Hopper that she is terrified of losing Henry, she has found no way to avoid his perceptive questioning, and this week is no different. She tries to talk about the right temperature for steak and denaturing myosin and actin at first, but Dr. Hopper looks at her, his gaze pensive, until she moves from meat to caramelizing sugars and the right temperature for that.

 

“You talked about adopting Henry last week, how you held him in your arms for the first time and how being a mother has changed you,” he begins finally, and Regina wonders how he always succeeds to interrupt her when she feels the most relaxed, the most unguarded. “Maybe this week you could talk about how your relationship with your son is different than what some might call traditional family binds.”

 

Regina presses the fingertips of her right hand into the palm of her left hand, because, despite having a controlling mother who always claimed to want what was best for her, she had never cared for traditional family values. Blood doesn’t make a family, she has learned, and neither do blood and family necessarily make a safe place for children to grow up in.

 

Dr. Hopper notices her tensing up, and he smiles at her encouragingly. “Maybe you could talk about how your relationship with your son has changed after the accident.”

 

She doesn’t think that things changed after the accident as much as they changed at the exact moment of the accident.

 

It was a twist of fate, a drunken driver running over a red light just when her son, his small hand in Mary Margaret’s slightly bigger one, was crossing the street. The car had missed them, barely, but Henry had stumbled forward, still holding Mary Margaret’s hand, and broken his left leg when he slipped on the icy pavement.

 

She had gotten the call while at work, Mary Margaret’s voice frantic on the other end of the phone when she had told her _something happened to Henry, nothing bad, but he keeps calling for you, and I really think you should come to the hospital._

 

Her little boy calling for his mama, and she had rushed to the hospital in a mess of paralyzing fear and hateful accusations. (At that moment, she had still thought that a broken leg was the worst thing that could have happened, that nothing had happened to Henry that a surgery or a cast couldn’t fix. She had been so wrong about that.)

 

She can picture it quite vividly now, can picture Henry lying on the examination table in the ER, eyes wide open in fear, can picture the doctor staring at the blood results (Henry’s 0 negative, her AB positive, and how is that even possible?), until Mary Margaret had nodded, gravely, and helpfully offered, “He is adopted.“ The doctor hat nodded then, too, and rushed Henry to the OR, where he had been given a stranger’s blood and gotten his tibia, broken in two places, repositioned and his leg wrapped in a cast.

 

When Henry had woken up after the surgery, his little hand tightly clasped between hers, he hadn’t talked to her at all. He had only pulled away and tried to turn to his uninjured side. His stubbornly suppressed wince had broken her heart all over again, and Regina could bodily feel the rift that had already taken up space between them, deepening.

 

“I really would prefer not to talk about that day,” Regina says, her voice sounding distant in her own ears, and she feels her heart beating wildly against her ribs.

 

Dr. Hopper takes one look at her tense shoulders, her panic taking on an almost tangible form in the way she keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs, before she finally places her feet on the floor, ready to run. He nods then, and after watching Regina take a forced breath, he offers, “Let’s talk about your relationship with your own parents instead.”

 

And Regina almost laughs at that, because never before talking about her mother has seemed like the safer option.

 

 

*

 

 

The rest of the week passes in a blur. Henry is back to not talking to her, suffering through his pain and physical therapy and struggles at school on his on, and it’s the first time since the accident that she doesn’t make him do his homework at the kitchen table where she can fuss over him and worry about the slightest sign of discomfort on his face. Henry doesn’t seem to mind that she suddenly lets him keep his distance, brooding in his room and only coming out for dinner.

 

At work, everyone but Emma seems to avoid her. Even Kathryn avoids her after she snaps at her for no apparent reason once too often, and Mary Margaret has given up apologizing long before. Emma, though, Emma always comes back to invade her space. They work side by side in relative silence, Regina keeping a watchful eye over Emma’s work.

 

“You’re not cutting the onions into even stripes,” she admonishes her one day, and the next, Emma simply quarters the onions and caramelizes them. Regina can’t believe her ears when Ruby comes back with a compliment from one of their customers on Emma’s excellent onion soup.

 

“Your diced mushroom look terrible,” Regina states the next day, and Emma only smiles at her and chops even larger chunks. The guests love that, too, of course.

 

Regina fumes silently the next day, and Emma calls her out on it. “You love to criticize me,” she says while Regina is grating truffle for her sauce. “And it kills you when you find nothing to criticize me about.”

 

“And what exactly makes you think that, Miss Swan?” Regina demands.

 

Emma’s grin deepens, showing off her insanely charming (no, not charming, Regina berates herself, there is absolutely nothing charming about her) dimples next to her lips. “I’d say the throbbing vein on your forehead pretty much gives you away.” She even has the audacity to wink and almost place her index finger on Regina’s forehead.

 

Regina gapes at her for a moment before she swats Emma’s hand away.

 

 

*

 

 

Regina cancels her therapy session the next week. She feels better after calling Dr. Hopper’s office, and even Kathryn can’t object to her change of plans when she explains that she has to take Henry to the doctor on Tuesday instead.

 

It’s six weeks after the accident, and it is finally time for Henry’s cast to come off. Regina picks him up after school, still with the car, and when he takes his weight off of his left leg before sliding into the back seat and pulling his crutches him after him, she nods at him approvingly in the rear view mirror. He keeps a sulking expression firmly plastered on his face, but she can see him straighten his shoulders in pride he is so hard trying not to show.

 

She drives the car to the hospital in silence, broken only when she asks him if he did eat the sandwich and apple she packed him for lunch (‘ _of course, I’m not four, mom!’_ ) and about how his English test went (‘ _I finished the questions ten minutes before the bell, and when I wanted to start_ _to go_ _through my answers again, Mr. Spencer farted so loud that even Michael in the last row heard it, and then everyone was laughing so hard that Mr. Spencer threatened to end the test early,’_ and it is maybe the first time in weeks that she has seen him smile so openly at her). He even lets her help him out of the car, and he doesn’t shrug off the hand she places on his shoulder to steer him to the entrance of the steel-and-glass building. In the waiting room, booming with crying babies and coughing strangers and the overall bustle of the health care industry, they take seats next to each other, and when she moves her hand from his shoulder, he grabs it after only a few seconds, holding her fingers in his lightly clammy hands. He takes a deep, calming breath when she places her free arm around his shoulders and squeezing him briefly to offer some comfort.

 

When they are called into the treatment room, Henry doesn’t let go of her hand either. Regina can’t bring herself to reprimand him for not using the crutches correctly. They have to wait for another long ten minutes, during which Regina takes Henry’s mind off the upcoming procedure by telling him about work. Her left hand is still curled around Henry’s right one, the tips of his fingers digging almost painfully into her palm. _It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay_ , she wants to say, but this tentative trust he is showing is still too fragile, she thinks, so instead she tells him about Emma who almost did succeed in setting her kitchen on fire, and about Ruby who almost dropped a bottle of red wine on a customer’s white suit, and about almost running into the dining area herself when one of her customers complained about the steak being too _spicy_. (She did run into the restaurant though, but she is definitely not telling her son about how she politely (okay, not very politely) suggested a romantic dinner at Burger King in case her quality food was not to his liking. He had fumed, and while Kathryn had tried to calm him down and offered him a bottle of their best wine, pulled his date off her chair and out of the restaurant.) He lets out a breathy little laugh at Emma’s clumsiness, something he can relate to and grips her hand tighter during the last story.

 

In the end, right before Dr. Whale enters the room and breaks the calm that has almost settled over the two of them, Henry looks at her with his pleading eyes (the one expression she always pretends does not work on her but does oh-so-well) and begs, “I want to come with you to the restaurant again, mom.”

 

And really, who is Regina to refuse him anything when he looks at her with something akin to trust for the first time in weeks?

 

So when the oscillating circular saw finally moves through the cast, baring the pinkish and sticky skin of Henry‘s leg, Regina smiles gently, proudly, at her son. “Let’s get you home. You will take a bath, and after that, you can accompany me to work.”

 

 

*

 

 

It is early on a Tuesday night, so the kitchen is relatively quiet when Henry and Regina arrive later. Mary Margaret stares at Henry with so much longing and love and regret that Regina almost feels her resolve crumble to never let her alone with her son. Henry, though, only reluctantly lets himself be pulled into an awkward half-embrace, his hands still on his crutches while Mary Margaret smiles, and presses her cheek to the top of his head, and wraps her arms around Henry’s thin shoulders. He only grins when he notices Emma at the other side of the kitchen, hands buried in pastry for tonight’s Chicken Dijon. Henry moves from Mary Margaret’s embrace and hobbles on his crutches around the center counter as fast as possible.

 

“Look, Emma,” he starts excitedly, “the whale doctor cut my cast off! I can scratch my foot again!”

 

Regina smiles across the room while Henry keeps babbling on, so much excitement lacing his words that every single one of his sentences seems to end in one or three exclamation marks. Emma smiles, too, eyes moving from the pastry to Henry and finally coming to rest on Regina, who is slowly moving towards the two of them.

 

“That’s great, kid,” she finally replies, looking back at Henry. She makes a face. “I bet your foot is now all smelly and icky.”

 

Henry crosses his arms in front of his chest indignantly. “It’s not!”

 

Emma grins mischievously. “Well, you didn’t wash it for six weeks. It has to be icky.”

 

Henry pouts, arms still crossed. “Of course not! Mom made me take a bath before we came here, and because my skin was all scaly, she even rubbed some lotion into it.”

 

“Oooooh,” Emma grins, “do you now smell like roses? Like your mom’s hand cream?”

 

Regina tries not to blush at the revelation that Emma knows exactly what her hand cream smells like and instead of dwelling on the question why she would even notice and bother to remember in the first place, she hides her discomfort by replying with a slightly abrasive, “honestly, Miss Swan, I do hope even an ignorant neanderthal like you would know better than to apply La Source to their kid’s sensitive skin,” pursing her lips patronizingly.

 

Emma visibly pales at that, and all lightness that had been present between them seems to evaporate. Her eyes take on a somewhat withdrawn and lost expression, before she swallows and turns back to Henry. “Oh, I don’t know, kid, I still think you smell like a bunch of freshly picked flowers until you proof me otherwise.” The small smile she directs first at Henry and then at Regina doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

 

“I do not!” Henry insists. “And Mom’s hands always smell good, and they always are soft when she rubs my stomach when I have tummy ache, so I bet my leg would smell good too, and feel soft too, if she would use her cream.” He bites his lower lip and Regina can see in the way he clenches his hands into tiny fist that he barely keeps himself from stomping his foot, a habit she has been trying to get him to drop for months now.

 

“Relax, kid, I was just joking,” Emma finally relents. She washes her hands thoroughly before picking Henry up to help him onto the counter. Regina feels inexplicably pleased that she made sure not to get any dough onto Henry‘s clothes. “Now let me see. Is your leg now hairy and pale? Can you move your toes?”

 

And somehow, the tight knot in Regina‘s chest loosens only a little while Henry pulls up the leg of his trousers, revealing that his leg is indeed pale and that he can still move his toes, even though his ankle is still a little stiff.

 

 

*

 

 

“I‘m sorry,” Regina says later when she is once again alone with Emma. “About earlier. I didn’t mean to upset you with my comment about kids.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Emma replies, but she sounds still somewhat withdrawn. “If I had rubbed the right lotion into my burns, I wouldn’t have these scars, right?” She redirects the topic of their conversation by pushing up the sleeves of her black shirt.

 

“That’s nothing,” Regina says after a moment and shows her own marks the job left on her skin ( _oil, a hot baking tray, a pan, a knife I shouldn‘t have tried to catch_ , she lists, pointing at the different scars on her hands and forearms).

 

“Oh, I have scar like that too, except I didn‘t catch the knife and it got stuck in my thigh and I needed five stitches and a tetanus shot,” Emma exclaims proudly. She stands up suddenly, about to pull down her pants.

 

Regina blushes and looks everywhere but at Emma with her hands on the fly of her pants. “Please, Miss Swan, keep you clothes on, I do believe you,” and all the tension that was present between them before has finally left the room, replaced by a different sort of tension.

 

Emma blushes too and sits back down on her chair and glances at Regina’s scar on her upper lip.

 

Regina swallows, licks her upper lip selfconsciously. “That one has nothing to do with cooking,” she says before she can stop herself, “my mother... Well, let‘s just say she wasn‘t a very gentle or patient woman.” Her voice trails off at the end of the sentence, afraid she has bared too much of herself.

 

Emma nods, understanding, and Regina thinks that she really does, because she looks over to where Henry is safely sleeping on a bench, Regina’s grey coat covering his small form. “One of my foster fathers used to get really angry when his beer was empty, and once he threw an empty bottle at the back of my head, so hard he gave me a concussion.”

 

Regina stares at her silently for a few moments, “You didn‘t have to...”

 

“I know. I wanted to share something with you, too,” Emma whispers, holding her gaze.

 

And Regina feels they are going to be okay.

 

 

*

 

 

They develop some sort of routine after that. Most days, Regina takes soups and main dishes, while Emma settles for entrees and desserts (except that one week where they offer baked alaska on their menu, because how is she to trust someone who thinks that a simple tiramisu is the, well, cherry on the cake, with a classic like that?), and more often than not, Regina finds herself almost ridiculously comfortable sharing her workspace with the other woman. Despite Regina‘s earlier doubts, Emma does exactly know what she is doing, and she is handling the sometimes rough and hectic atmosphere of the kitchen with surprising ease and gracefulness.

 

They also develop a routine where after the work of the day is done, when Ruby and Ashley have cleared the last table and Kathryn has send everyone home for the night, Emma and Regina settle down at the small table in the back of the restaurant, open a bottle of wine and Regina pretends a little less to dislike her than during the day. Regina soon learns that Emma doesn‘t exactly care for red wine, taking only small sips and trying hard not to pull a face in front of Regina, so instead, she subtly opts for Gewürztraminer or Sémillon instead on most days.

 

Marian chooses to comment on it one Friday evening. Regina has the day off, and a late shift on Saturday, and they are sitting cozily in Marian’s living room, watching Roland and Henry racing each other around the circuit in Mario cart.

 

“You spend an awful amount of time with that _idiot cook_ ,” Marian says when she is sure that the boys are too wrapped up in the game to listen. “What are you doing, late at night, after work, alone in the quiet restaurant? I hope it includes a healthy amount of tension solving.” She adds an over-exaggerated wink, and Regina throws a pillow at her to hide the blush rising on her cheeks.

 

And really, Regina doesn’t want to be thinking about Emma that way, except now she is, a lot, and if, during their next shift together, she stares at Emma‘s arms and hands and lips a lot more than maybe appropriate, well, she isn’t to blame for that, right? Right.

 

 

*

 

 

“You don‘t know what it’s like,“ Henry complains one night when he is sitting on the counter in the restaurant. He is alternately scribbling notes in his journal and kicking his heels against the counter, and Regina has to glare at him more than once to stop him doing the latter.

 

“I don’t know what, kid?” Emma replies, her eyes focused on the lemon panna cotta she is preparing. “I don‘t know what it’s like in school? What it’s like to be the weird kid? Because let me tell you, I absolutely know what it‘s like to be a misfit.” With her left hand, she turns down the heat of the stove, the frizzling in the pan dying down to a pleasant background noise, and with her right hand, she pats the space on the counter next to the stove. Silently, Regina watches as Henry moves over to the spot Emma has indicated. Emma hands him the spatula. “Keep stirring. The guests will complain if you burn it, and you know how your mom gets when the guests aren’t one hundred percent happy.” Fully aware that the other woman is watching them from the corner of her eyes, Emma gives her a secretive wink. Regina glares at her- what temerity!- and tries not to blush all the same.

 

“Anyway,” Emma continues, getting her favorite knife (and how they’ve come to the point where she knows exactly which one is Emma’s favorite knife is beyond Regina) and starts to chop papaya. “I was nine, maybe ten, and I was living with the Smiths at the time. They were one of the nicer families I stayed with, always trying to make me feel at home, and buying me things and stuff. So when I came home day, crying about how we were going to celebrate Halloween at school the next day, and I didn’t have a costume, and everybody would make fun of me and so on, the first thing Mrs. Smith did, after drying my tears of course, was take me to this gigantic-ass costume store… sorry, _ginormic_ costume store,” she corrects herself at a well-placed glare from Regina. “I tried on every single one of their costumes, the pretty little princess, the pink fairy with the yellow wings, the cowboy- that costume was awesome, it came complete with a wooden pony, but the pants were too long and too loose around my hips and I was afraid I’d lose them in the excitement of the party. So in the end, I settled for the clown, you know, because they can make people laugh, but at the same time, they are also...”

 

Her voice trails off, sounding almost embarrassed, and Regina can see spots of red appear high on her cheeks. “Freakishly scary?” Regina helpfully offers from her remote place where she is kneading the dough for the quails, and she can’t suppress a tiny smirk when Emma’s blush intensifies.

 

“Yes, thank you, clowns are scary.” Emma adds a shot of cream to the pan, tells Henry again to keep stirring. “So on the morning of Halloween, I was waiting at the bus stop in my full clown outfit, complete with ridiculously large shoes- I don’t even know how I could walk in those-, my red nose and curly bright red hair, and of course a squirting flower.” For a few seconds, Emma falls silent, the frizzling of the pan and the staccato of her knife hitting the cutting board the only sound coming from her side of the room.

 

“I was so proud of myself,” she continues finally, “so proud of myself and my mismatched lilac pants and yellow shirt, that at first, when I entered the bus I didn‘t even notice everyone was staring at me. Only when the others started laughing and pointing at me I realized that I was the only one in costume.” With a final sigh, Emma takes both the spatula and the pan from Henry, taking a taste with the tip of a teaspoon. She nods, satisfied. “I realized then that I got the date mixed up. So honestly, I do know what it’s like to be the weird kid. Nice job on the dessert though. Your mom will not rip your hearts out, I guess.”

 

Henry does laugh then, the frown finally vanishing from his face, and Regina mouths a “thank you” when Emma looks at her somewhat shyly.

 

 

*

 

 

After his next physio (Mulan tells her that Henry has made incredible progress, and Henry doesn’t flinch when Mulan leans over to ruffle his too long hair. “He won’t need me much longer, I think.”) Henry acts suspiciously well-behaved on their way back home. He holds onto Regina’s hand when they cross the street. He lets Regina carry his backpack up the stairs to their apartment. He places his shoes next to the front door without Regina telling him so.

 

Regina waits until dinner before she stares him down and asks him what exactly he is planning.

 

Cocking his head in a way that he definitely has learned from Emma, Henry beams at her. “Mulan said I am really good at physio.” Regina nods at that. “And I got an A in my English test.” Regina nods at that as well. “And I’ve been really good at home, too.”

 

Regina squints at her son, waiting for him to continue.

 

“And that is why I think I should be granted a wish.”

 

Regina suppresses a laugh. Did he get that from his comic books or his fairytale obsession? “Okay, then, what would be your wish?”

 

Henry’s next words make her wish she hadn’t asked.

 

 

*

 

 

During their next shift, Regina waits until she is alone with Emma. She will not stumble her way through a dinner invitation, but she will not make a fool of herself either. “Just to make sure, Miss Swan, I am not the one asking you to come over. It was purely Henry’s idea, and since he seems to have taken quite a shine to you I would appreciate it if you would follow his invitation to have dinner with us. At our apartment.”

 

Emma grins at her cockily. “Of course only Henry wants me to come over? In that case, who am I to say no to someone who just had his leg broken? I will follow your invitation, for Henry’s sake only, of course.”

 

Regina shoots Emma what she hopes is a frightening warning look, but she can’t help the corners of her mouth lift up anyway. “This Friday, 6 pm. Don’t be late, Miss Swan,” she tells her, but her voice is lacking its usual bite.

 

 

*

 

 

Come Friday, Regina finds herself checking her make-up and hair more often than necessary while Henry is busy setting the table in the living room. Regina hasn’t been allowed to enter the room since Henry came home from school and started running excitedly from his room, to the kitchen, to the living room, and that leaves her with nothing to do but feel nervousness build up behind her sternum. It’s for Henry, it’s Henry’s wish, she tells herself, but she can’t stop thinking about the way Emma’s eyes lit up every time she had mentioned dinner. Her own eyes had shown none of her feelings, Regina had thought to herself, but now she is standing in front of the mirror, and her eyes are sparkling as much as the earrings Henry had given her for her last birthday, and she can’t even tell herself that she isn’t almost as excited as Henry seems to be.

 

The doorbell rings at 6 pm sharp, and Regina is pleased that Emma made an effort to be on time for once. Regina barely has time to register that she made an effort to dress up as well before she is ushered from her kitchen. “I told you before, mom, Emma and I are cooking today. You aren’t allowed in here.”

 

Her face falls a little, and suddenly Emma is blocking her path from the room. “I don’t know, kid, but maybe your mom could stay as well? She could criticize the mess we make in her kitchen, and there is nothing she can do about that. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

 

Henry thinks about it for a moment, his eyebrows drawn together, then gives an approving nod.

 

This is how Regina finds herself sitting at her kitchen table, the glass of wine Emma has offered standing in front of her, barely touched. Despite her greatest fears, the cooking session does not end in a minor catastrophe. All her glasses stay in one piece, and Emma makes sure they don’t leave too much of a mess behind, rinsing pots, and pans, and knives as they work.

 

Emma only looks a little worried when Henry takes one of her sharp knives to cut the vegetables. “You sure you‘re up for this, kid?”

 

And Henry rolls his eyes at her worry. „”Mom taught me how to use a knife when I was _four_ , Emma.”

 

And Regina can feel her chest swell with pride. “I can assure you, Miss Swan, my son is more than ‘up’ for the simple task of chopping onions.”

 

Emma looks at her, then back at Henry, and shrugs. “If you say so. Just don’t hurt yourself.”

 

Henry’s onions end up a little crooked, well, not crooked, but not Regina’s small, even strips either, and Emma takes a certain delight in mocking him about that. “You call my onions a mess, Regina? Have you looked at the way your son cuts onions? He is basically _ruining_ the dish!”

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “He is doing fine, Miss Swan. Also, do you really want to compare your handiwork, with you being an accomplished chef, to that of a ten-year-old?” Her voice as well as her right eyebrow rise at the end of her question.

 

Emma rolls her eyes at her, and turns back to her cutting board, side by side with Henry again. “Whatever.“ When she thinks Regina isn‘t looking she bumps Henry‘s shoulder with her own, “Your onion game is weak, kid.“

 

Regina tries to send her a disapproving look but ends up smiling instead. “Children, both of you,“ she mutters under her breath.

 

She takes a bathroom break an hour later and makes a brief detour to her bedroom. Marian has sent her a text, asking how her date is going, which Regina ignores and looks out of the window instead. She comes back to her kitchen in one piece, two pizzas in the oven and what appears to be three glasses of chocolate mousse topped with strawberries on her kitchen table. She pretends her mouth does not water at the sight and smell greeting her, but she fails judging by the way Emma smirks at her knowingly. “That’s chocolate mousse with red wine, actually,” Emma explains and points at the dessert glasses. “There is one without alcohol for Henry, too.”

 

Regina smiles at that, until she notices that her one-hundred-dollar bottle of red wine is missing a major part of its contents. “You did not just use this wine for a simple dessert, did you?” Regina gapes, aghast, and Henry cackles, “Oh boy, you’re in so much trouble, Emma.”

 

“Wait till you taste it, Regina. It’s heaven,” and she holds out a spoon for Regina to try.

 

Regina has to admit that Emma isn’t absolutely wrong about the dessert, especially when Emma is standing so close to her and looking at her lips while Regina swallows nervously.

 

 

*

 

 

“It’s not that I hate red wine,” Emma explains later that evening. They have settled in front of the couch in Regina‘s living room, and after Henry went to bed with only a minimal amount of pouting, Regina decided to light a fire in the fireplace. Soft shadows are playing over Emma’s features when she continues. “But I don’t exactly like it either,” she admits grudgingly, and Regina has to wonder for a moment how Emma made it through culinary school when she pulls that kind of face just thinking about wine.

 

Regina laughs softly. “So instead of, let’s say, acquiring a taste you opted for the easy way of hard liquor instead?” she asks, tilting and turning her tumbler of whiskey to watch the golden liquid stick to its sides.

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it easy,” Emma disagrees. “I had to try, like, twenty different whiskeys before I came across this gem.” She lifts her own glass to her lips, her eyes locked onto Regina’s, before she takes a small sip and closes her eyes, savoring its strong taste in the back of her mouth.

 

The way her eyelids flutter softly is slightly distracting, Regina has to admit.

 

“Did you know that in Gaelic, Whiskey means water of life?” Emma asks, eyes still closed.

 

“I did not,” Regina answers truthfully, eyes fixed on Emma’s lips, curving into a soft smile.

 

And just like that, she moves forward, feeling inexplicably nervous as she slides her right hand to the back of Emma’s neck. Regina smiles hesitantly before pressing her lips to Emma's.

 

It takes a split second for the other woman to react, and Regina panics and almost pulls back, but then Emma’s hands fall to her shoulders, pull her slightly closer. She sighs into the kiss and feels Emma smile against her mouth.

 

“Tastes like whiskey when you kiss me,” Regina whispers, and before Emma can ask her how she is quoting Lady Gaga, Regina leans forward again. For a while, she feels her whole world shrinking down to this single moment.

 

 

*

 

 

Another of Regina Mills’ important rules is to never flirt and let herself be flirted with at the workplace.

 

Turns out, that Emma Swan has a habit of breaking down this rule as well. Currently, Emma and Regina are sitting next to each other at the staff table, listening to David droning on about the newest additions to their wine list. Emma keeps running the tips of her fingers along Regina’s left thigh, and Regina keeps swatting her hand away, impatiently. It’s distracting, Regina thinks, but she can’t fight the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth anyway. “Stop it,” she hisses under her breath once Emma’s fingers inch closer to her knee again. Instead of simply pushing her hand away, though, this time Regina grips Emma’s hand and, interlacing their fingers, holds it on top of her thigh.

 

This is how Regina ends up not only flirting but holding hands at a staff meeting.

 

Not even five minutes later, Kathryn approaches them. With more force than probably necessary, Regina pushes Emma’s hand away from her thigh and crosses her own arms in front of her chest. From the corner of her eyes, she can see Emma suppress a grin. Regina huffs indignantly.

 

“I’ll just pretend I didn’t see this,” Kathryn starts, “and instead I will talk about Emma’s idea for an Italian week, and you will listen, Regina.”

 

Her eyebrows drawn together, Regina stares first at Kathryn, then at Emma. “A _what_?”

 

“An Italian week,” Kathryn explains. “Emma thought it might be time to add some variety to our menu and offered a choice of dishes. She worked out a list of starters, mains and desserts, and I want you to go through it and narrow it down, maybe three or four each.”

 

Regina can feel the vein on her forehead pulsing. Next to her, Emma stiffens perceptibly. “We need to talk,” Regina says through clenched teeth, rising from her chair and waiting for Emma to follow her.

 

She considers going to her office, but it doesn’t have a door and there’s no way she will have the rest of the staff listening in on their argument and gossiping behind her back for the weeks to come. Instead, she heads for the walk-in fridge; it’s sound-proof, she knows that from her crying sessions when she was still new at this job, her first chef position, and Henry at home with the measles.)

 

The door closes behind them with a soft thud, and Emma begins, “Regina, I didn’t mean to...”

 

Regina whirls around, eyes blazing, posture stiff. “How dare you?” She takes a step closer to the other woman, trying to find gratification in the way Emma steps backwards, and failing miserably. She keeps talking anyway. “How dare you, Emma, come into my kitchen and destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for, for all my life? I’m good at my job, the best, and I will not stand here while you are trying to prove you are as good as I am. This is my kitchen, everything I’ve ever wanted.” Emma opens her mouth to speak, but Regina holds her hand up to stop her, feeling angry tears well up in her eyes. “I thought I could trust you, but you’re just trying to take everything away from me, aren’t you? You’re just like everyone else.” She closes her eyes against the hurt expression on Emma’s face.

 

Emma pinches the bridge of her nose, close to tears herself. “Regina, I… I’m not trying to take anything away from you. This is not… I enjoyed working with you, I loved spending time with you, and the last thing I wanted was to take your kitchen or job. I never meant to, I only wanted to offer some advice...” Regina’s jaw clenches at that, and Emma sighs. “Look, Regina, I really did enjoy working with you, and I would really like to keep doing that. But really, I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted, or where I want more from a… relationship than the other person does.” Her eyes turn sad, and lost, and Regina almost wants to pull her into her arms to chase that hurt away, but doesn’t. “I’ve been there before,” Emma continues, “and I’m definitely not staying any longer where I’m not wanted. Just say something and I’ll leave. I’ll hand in my letter of resignation first thing tomorrow and you’ll never have to see me again.”

 

For a moment, they stand in front of each other, Emma’s shoulders drawn inwards, Regina towering over her in her high heels, and Regina feels too proud and too helpless at the same time to accept Emma’s olive branch.

 

Emma’s face hardens when Regina doesn’t react. “Fine, I’ll just, I’ll go, then,” she mumbles and turns to leave when Regina’s cell phone rings.

 

The shrill tone makes both of them wince, and Regina reluctantly pulls her cell from her pocket. It’s the number from Henry’s school on the display, and everything shatters into a million pieces at that moment.

 

 

*

 

 

“Listen, I’m not going to let you do this on your own,” Emma insists. “You’re in no shape to go looking for Henry like this.”

 

After ending the call (“Ms Mills? This is Belle French, Henry’s English teacher, I just wanted to make sure that Henry was alright since he didn’t come to school today,” and the only thing keeping the phone in her hand from falling to the floor had been the petrifying fear she had felt at the thought of her son _missing_.), Regina had stormed from the walk-in fridge, a puzzled Emma running behind her. She had called her landline number, hoping against hope Henry would pick up and explain in his calm voice why he wasn’t at school. After that, she had called his cell, and Marian, and Micheal Tillman, Ava and Nick’s father, and after talking to Ava, wordlessly gripped her purse and car keys.

 

Emma had stopped her then, and the other woman is blocking her path from the restaurant. Firmly, she grabs Regina’s hand, the one that is holding the keys and shaking so hard she’s almost making something akin to music. “You’re not driving that car, Regina,” she insists, and five minutes later, Regina finds herself in the passenger seat of her car.

 

“Is there any close friend we should visit first?” Emma asks, and Regina recites a list of names and addresses from memory, and decides they are not going to find him at any of his friends.

 

‘ _We talked about my parents yesterday,’_ Ava had told her earlier. _‘My mom’s birthday is coming up, and I was… sad, because I can’t remember her from before she got sick, and I think Nick said that at least we still have our father, and… I don’t know, Ms Mills, I don’t know where Henry is.’_

 

Her heart is beating wildly in her chest (at least it’s still beating, Regina thinks, like the only reminder that she is still alive, because her son is missing, and it might kill her). She bites her lip, and thinks, and then she pulls up a lift of adoption agencies in New York on her phone.

 

Emma smiles reassuringly at her. “We’ll find him,” she says, briefly placing her hand on top of Regina’s before changing into third gear.

 

The first two agencies have neither heard of nor seen her son, but the third one is a hit. There was a boy there, they tell her, brown hair, brown eyes, limping a little when he walked down the steep stairs, and Regina gives Emma the address before she feels tears running down her cheeks and has to turn to the window to keep herself from falling apart in front of Emma.

 

They find him finally a half hour later, in a small park in front of the adoption agency.

 

Emma spots him first, pointing him out to Regina, and she hasn’t fully pulled the car to the curb when Regina pushes open her door. She’s frantic, clutching a handkerchief in her right hand, and her phone in her left while she rushes towards her son. “Henry! Where have you been?” she asks, breathless from fear and running, and the tight knot in her stomach unravels a little when her son is in front of her, still in one piece.

 

He looks up at her, eyes red, cheeks wet, his little hands clenched into tight fists. “Mom,” he sniffles helplessly, and lets himself be pulled into a tight hug by his mother.

 

For the next few minutes, Henry’s tears keep flowing freely, he clutches Regina’s white blouse and she feels tears, and probably snot, wet her shoulder, and never has she been more relieved to hold her son in her arms.

 

Finally, his sobs die down. “I wanted to find my… my birth parents,” Henry mumbles, voice low and defeated. “I was at the adoption agency, but they said they couldn’t help me, because I am not eighteen and it was a closed adoption. I just wanted to know who they are.” His tears start anew, and Regina tightens her embrace and strokes the back of his neck. They’ll talk later about how it’s not okay to run away and scare your mother to death.

 

The cold is starting to seep into her skin when Henry’s breathing calms, and she can feel him shiver despite his warm jacket.

 

Regina holds Henry at his shoulders, making him look up at her. “We will talk later about why your behavior was wrong, Henry, but for now I want you to know that you should never doubt how much I love you. When I decided to adopt you, I chose you, I chose to love you no matter what. Just because I didn’t give birth to you doesn’t mean I love you any less. Love makes a family, Henry, and I love you so, so much.” She presses a kiss to his forehead, warm lips against cold skin, and takes his left hand with her right. “Let’s go home, okay?”

 

He nods gravely at her, but his eyes are shining in a way that tells her that some of her words have gotten through to him.

 

During the drive home, Emma at the steering wheel, and Regina in the back with Henry pressed close to her side, Regina keeps alternately gazing out of the window and looking at Emma’s face in the rear-view mirror. The other woman keeps shooting her worried looks, which Regina returns with what she hopes is a calming smile.

 

Emma accepts her invitation into the apartment with a hopeful smile.

 

 

*

 

 

It’s not even six in the evening when Regina closes the door to Henry’s bedroom. She had made him take a warm shower and drink warm cocoa with honey and cinnamon before she had wrapped him up in his blanket and read him half a chapter from his favorite book. He had fallen asleep against her despite fighting his eyes closing.

 

Beyond exhausted herself, Regina returns to the living room, where Emma is sitting on the couch, slumped forward, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. “This is not how I pictured this day to end,” she mutters without looking up.

 

Regina smiles tiredly. “Neither did I.” Groaning, she sits down next to Emma, close enough to touch if they wish so, but still keeping a safe distance between them.

 

“I would offer you a glass of my best wine,” Regina says, and Emma does look up to briefly glare at her, “but I’m not sure you know how to appreciate that.” She looks at her hands, the little scars her job has left on her fingers, small but still more visible than the scars her past experience has left on her inside. “I don’t think we should be drinking anyway, she says, before drawing in a deep breath. “I have a proposition to make.”

 

 

*

 

 

Six months after she leaves her old job behind, she gets a call from one of her high school friends. Sidney Glass is now editor-in-chief of the _Enchanted Eating._ He has helped her through some of her darkest teenage years, when she was still living under her mother’s roof, and she feels indebted enough to him to say yes when he requests a phone interview for his magazine.

“Of course my working life is different now,” Regina agrees, holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder. “Nowadays, I focus less on what might win me a spot in the Michelin guide and more on what my customers (Henry, who is leaning against the counter and listening in on her end of the conversation, lifts his eyebrows at that, and she corrects herself,) _our_ customers want to eat. Less coq au vin, more enchiladas and burgers, if you so want.” She smiles, almost wistfully, and carefully places enchiladas in a pan before topping them with her special sauce and grated cheese. “The most important things haven’t changed, though- I still love what I do, I prepare food I enjoy myself, and I work with people who are very dear to me.” At that, she looks across the small kitchen at Emma. The other woman looks up from chopping chocolate for panna cotta, only briefly, but blushing profusely.

 

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

_(the end)_

**Author's Note:**

> Now, thank you, dear reader, for reading. Feel free to leave a comment. ;)


End file.
